15. Guess my name
GUESS MY NAME
Rafael surprised me with a trip to my salon in San Mateo after brunch.
I hadn’t been there in ages. He’d booked two separate sessions; one to cut my hair and lift it to platinum, the other to color, since all together it might be eight hours.
Stylists flocked around him and cooed over his hair until he shooed them away.
As I settled into the chair, my phone buzzed. Deandra sent me a photo of a tiny hamster nibbling on the end of a banana twice its size.
Dee: this u?
Dee: also can i watch?
Me: go to horny jail
Me: arent you cheating on michael b?
Dee: he’ll understand
Dee: jk tho. music man isnt my type
Dee: ur rite tho. i like him. dont trust him but i like him
Me: baby steps. ill take it
“Who are you talking to?” Rafael peered over my aproned shoulder.
My stylist, a short, pale woman named Ji-an with a cherry-red balayage, wisely moved her foiling to the other side of my head to make room for him. She’d already done an excellent job taming my grown-out layers.
“Nosey! It’s Dee.”
On a wicked whim, I turned the screen so he could see the picture she sent. His eyes widened, and he walked away.
“Oh, come on, that’s funny,” I called after him.
My phone buzzed again.
Rafael: Do you know how many times I have been sent that fucking hamster?
The foils kept me from going to him.
Me: im sorry! i didnt mean to upset you!
Rafael: I am not upset. Maybe a little too sensitive about dick jokes. It is objectively funny.
“Your boyfriend has the best hair I’ve ever seen. It’s so unfair. Why do men get everything?” Ji-an grumbled.
“He really does.”
Boyfriend. What were we, exactly? Did we need to have that conversation? In past relationships, I’d always felt unsettled until we established labels, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter in this one.
While my hair processed, Rafael sat in the waiting area—out of place, like an ancient god among the colorful magazines and pop art.
Eyes closed, head slightly tilted, he listened intently to the music playing over the speaker; an alt rock song I didn’t recognize.
His left hand played along on an invisible keyboard.
From the pinch of his brow, he didn’t approve. It seemed like a decent song to me.
Toner, rinse, and blow dry, and I hardly recognized myself in the mirror. I’d never lifted my hair to that level of icy platinum on my own.
Platinum. As in blonde. Oh no.
I twisted to look at Rafael again. He stared hard at my hair.
“If we just did a single shade of blue today, how long would that take?” I asked.
Ji-an frowned, glancing at her watch. “Well, that will go over the appointment time…”
“I will pay the extra,” Rafael said quickly, his voice carrying across the room. “Whatever it takes. And I will double your tip.”
She nodded. “Ok, I can work with that. I don’t have anyone after you.” To me, she whispered, “Where did you find him? Does he have a brother?”
“My man is one of a kind, sorry.” My man. I liked that. “And I found him in a bookstore.”
I blew him a kiss. He laid a hand over his heart.
Two and a half hours later, I walked out into the dimming sunset with deep blue hair that Ji-an promised would wash out brighter. She’d snuck in a purple streak at the front and tips too.
“Thank you for doing that,” Rafael said.
“Thank you for paying for it. My hair feels healthier than it has in a long time. Home-frying really isn’t the best option.”
Rafael gathered a blue lock in his hands. “It looks great. I—” He stilled, eyes sliding past me. I turned my head, and he forcibly turned me back. “We are being watched,” he whispered. “Follow my lead.”
“What the fuck?” I whispered back.
He propelled me down the street by my elbow.
“Are you Rafael Nazim?” The voice behind us pronounced it ‘RAFFY-el NAY-zeem’.
My ears throbbed in protest. We turned. A stocky, balding guy wearing a military surplus vest stood there with his feet planted on the sidewalk. More men lurked at the corner. Fear stabbed down my spine.
“No,” Rafael said, and turned back around.
He steered me along. Heart thumping in my ears, I nearly skipped trying to keep up with his much longer stride.
“Mr. Nazim,” the man called. “We just wanna chat.”
Footsteps behind us.
Rafael ignored them, keeping his voice low. “If they try to put their hands on me, you run. Do not intervene; do not stay and record. Run.”
Terrified, I clung to his arm. How could I possibly leave him behind if those assholes attacked him?
The footsteps behind us drew closer. Rafael ducked into a consignment store, dragging me with him. An employee walked up to greet us and he strode right past her. Other employees barked out in surprise as he pushed through the back door.
“Mr. Nazim, come on. We just wanna talk,” a male voice chased us outside.
We doubled back through the parking lot and around to the front of the salon again. Rafael steered me across the street in the opposite direction of the parking garage. Finally, we made it to the Escalade. I locked the doors as soon as he closed them, hands shaking.
Rafael peeled out of the parking space. I yelped and grabbed the oh-shit handle.
“Sorry. This fucking enrages me. I am sure that was a thank you gift from Chaddington Quarter-Zip the Third.” He spun the wheel, and we whipped through the surface streets toward the freeway. “Another downside of being so recognizable.”
I clung to the handle for dear life. “Ugh, that makes total sense. But did you really think I’d leave you behind if they attacked you?”
He glanced at me. “Your safety is all that matters. I can handle myself, and I will not have you putting a target on your head. Do you understand?”
Paternalistic, but I understood. Rafael clearly was not afraid of a street fight, and he had resources I didn’t. I swallowed past the growing lump in my throat.
My hands shook, and tears welled. There was that meltdown I thought I’d avoided earlier.
“Elaine, are you ok?”
I shook my head, unable to speak over the sudden avalanche of thoughts. Headlights popping on in the deepening dusk stabbed my eyes, so I squeezed them shut. My stomach heaved at the sharp turns.
Rafael spoke to me, but I couldn’t parse the words over the rushing in my ears.
I curled into a ball as much as the seatbelt allowed, clawing at my arms to make the buzzing under my skin stop.
The drive surely didn’t take as long as it felt, but I’d swear the entire night had passed by the time we finally pulled into the garage.
“Come, my love, leave your arms alone.” Rafael gently pried me out of the Escalade, unhooking my fingernails from my flesh.
Cradled against his chest, he carried me to the elevator, humming all the way into the bedroom. There, he pulled off his shirt and mine, and held me tight on the bed.
Humming became a song in a familiar refrain—Misty Mountains. In a bass powerful enough to fill the room and the very marrow of bones, Rafael sang the deepest notes, proving his oktavist range. His voice anchored my soul. Little by little, I relaxed against him until I was fully limp.
He brushed my hair from my face. “Better?”
I nodded, and he kissed my forehead.
“Today was a lot. I am sorry.”
“Not your fault,” I forced out. “Thanks for protecting me.”
“Always, canimin ici. My lovely windup girl. Always.”
I woke up some indeterminate time later with Rafael hovering over me, a look of concern stamped on his face.
I cupped his cheek. “Hey, I’m ok. I can’t always outrun the meltdowns. That one started when Dickhead McGee and friends knocked me down, and it came roaring back when those weirdos showed up. Are you ok?”
The lines in his face deepened. “I am incredibly fucking angry about today. If you had not been with me, that little encounter would have ended very differently.”
My heart rate sped up. “Then I’m glad I was. I don’t want you to get hurt fighting off some random dickheads. Please. I need you here with me.”
“I have survived worse than anything those shits can offer. But the idea of their harming you terrifies me in a way I can hardly describe. A way I have never truly felt before. If anything happened to you, I would be undone.” He closed his eyes.
“You got a small taste of the worst of associating with me today. Does it make you want to run?”
I pelted his face with kisses. “It makes me want to stay right here in your arms forever. The more I learn about you, the more I love you. You are a very special person, Rafael Nazim. I can’t help but feel like fate brought you into my life.”
“I love you,” he said simply. “I want to keep you safe. What kind of flowers do you like?”
“You’re gonna think I’m basic, but red roses. Although I really prefer LEGO flowers these days because they’re cute and they don’t die. I’m blighted, I swear. Plants hate me.”
Rafael smiled. “All the LEGO roses for you, then.”
The quavering in my belly refused to subside. A tremor ran through me.
I burrowed deeper into his arms, smashing my face against his chest. “I don’t want to be apart. I’m scared to death now that something will happen to you and I won’t be here and I won’t even know.”
“Does that mean you want to move in?” The hope in his voice almost had me crying all over again.
“Yeah. I just need to get some things together. I’m worried about leaving my housemates in a lurch though. They can’t easily make up that rent, and finding a new roomie is so fraught.”
Rafael tilted my chin up. “I do not want to leave Deandra in a bad position either. Will you allow me to cover your portion of the rent until they figure it out? That way you can still go back there if you need your own space from time to time, and you can save your money. My schedule is erratic at best.”
“I’d like to be stubborn and refuse, but that’s very generous.
” Truthfully, the idea of setting foot outside his safe fortress filled me with dread.
“I’ll ask Princess if she’ll let me arrange remote work.
There’s no real need for me to be in the office these days, anyway. I can start packing my stuff tomorrow.”
A smile broke across Rafael’s face like the first light of dawn.